Sharing the pain - Budget must bring about a new fairness

IT is not so very long since the national conversation was dominated by soaring property prices.

The purring, self-congratulatory subtext was how wonderful it all was ... “just imagine, our house is worth €160,000 more than we paid for it, and all in three years. Amazing”.

It was amazing indeed. It is amazing how gullible we were. Now, some who enjoyed that loads-a-money conversation when the wind was at our backs find themselves divorced or separated and without a “dig out” in sight. Some are in court fighting to renegotiate impossible separation arrangements because they are unable to sell the house they shared for anything like what it was worth when their relationship ended. Sorrow heaped upon sorrow by the realities of our times. If we can bare to discuss property values at all now it is to wonder when the market will bottom out. Now the pendulum has hit the wood at the far side of the clock-case, we are fixated on ensuring everyone “shares the pain”. All of a sudden social equity, however you imagine it, is the imperative.